The Colorado State University Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society, with its annual change of officers after a November election, set a list of objectives and goals for the following year. This list included recruiting new members and retaining past members; organization of information and outreach, advertising more and utilizing social media, giving side projects more attention in the student chapter, fundraising and communicating well among officers to the student chapter members and with professionals.

Working towards these goals, there was a major emphasis on including the raptor monitoring and camera trap projects into the student chapter. Previously, these programs were run independently and did not gain much funding or attention from members. The raptor monitoring program travels to Boyd Lake in Loveland to observe and record any behavior of birds of prey, data which are used by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). The camera project has set up several cameras in Pineridge Natural Area in Fort Collins, which allows members to learn how to use and set up camera traps and analyze the resulting data. This program also works with Fort Collins elementary and middle schools, where the student chapter members work to educate the children about ecology and trail cameras. In the past few months, weekly events for these educational programs have reached record high attendances.

Within the last year, the student chapter has had many renowned faculty, researchers, graduate students and wildlife biologists utilize our student chapter’s biweekly meetings to present their research and educate members about the field. Additionally, the student chapter traveled to McGregor Ranch, near Rocky Mountain National Park, in September 2017 and worked for two days to repair a riparian habitat by removing spans of invasive flora.

In February 2018, the student chapter was fortunate to send six of the officers to the Colorado Chapter of The Wildlife Society’s Annual Meeting in Grand Junction. This provided student chapter members an invaluable opportunity to connect with professionals and other students, as well as learn about what is happening in the field of wildlife biology.

In the upcoming months, the student chapter is looking forward to hearing from even more biologists, partnering with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and The Wildlife Disease Association to attend a clinic on wildlife immobilization techniques, working with Area 9 biologists for a service project and techniques workshop, and as many other outdoor events as possible. Next year, the student chapter is working to regain club traditions, such as a hunting and trapping workshop put on by CPW, and a bighorn sheep survey project. The student chapter’s priority is to provide members with hands-on opportunities and experiences that will help them better understand the field of wildlife biology and maintain and improve the student chapter’s relationship with professionals and organizations in the area.

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